Man's interest in his long destiny in the next world is an old preoccupation; individuals have planned ahead for immediate families, and rulers for dynasties; but the concern of whole nations over what things will be like 25 or 100 years hence is a truly new phenomenon.... There are infinite possibilities for error here, from too much imagination as well as from too little. At first glance it might seem that the safest course would be to assume no change from present technology, but with today's rate of technological gain this is just about the surest way of going wrong. From what was known in 1900, with only a few uncertain horseless carriages on the bad roads, the probable 1950 demand for buggy whips would have looked quite respectable.
—From the Editorial Introduction to Science and Resources, to be published in October by The Johns Hopkins Press.
The whole history of the conservation movement has been an evolution from concern with single resources to realization of their interdependence and of the need for viewing the problem in its entirety.
—Paul B. Sears, in Perspectives on Conservation.
A version of this article appeared in print in the September 1959 issue of Resources magazine.
